Have the Feds at Your Fingertips: An
Afternoon of Canadian Government
Resources (and especially statistics!)
Amanda Wakaruk (amanda.wakaruk@ualberta.ca)
and Anna Bombak (anna.bombak@ualberta.ca)
University of Alberta Libraries
March 15, 2010
Outline
• Overview of Canadian Government Structure
(Amanda)
• Accessing Canadian Government Information
(Amanda)
• Exercise
Break 2:15-2:45pm
• Statistics Canada Resources (Anna)
• Exercise
• Wrap-Up (Amanda)
What is
information?
Anything published by or for a governmental body as part of the
operation of governing.
 Laws & Legislative Materials (e.g., Canadian Environmental Protection Act)
 Patents (e.g., CA 2382464, High-Affinity Choline Transporter)
 Reports (e.g., Building on Values, Royal Commission on the Future of Health
Care in Canada aka Romanow Report)
 Data & Statistics (e.g., Census of Canada and related PUMF)
 Maps (e.g., National Topographic System (NTS) maps)
 Ephemera (e.g., posters, pamphlets, etc.)
Federal Government Structure
Legislative Branch
main deliberative body
 Parliament of Canada
http://www.parl.gc.ca/
 LegisInfo
http://www2.parl.gc.ca/Sites/LOP/LE
GISINFO/index.asp?Language=E
Federal Government Structure
Judicial Branch
administers court system
 Supreme Court of Canada
http://www.scc-csc.gc.ca/
Federal Government Structure
Executive Branch
interprets and implements legislation
 departmental web sites
http://www.gc.ca/
 White Papers (policy)
 Green Papers (discussion)
 Google search with site limit
(e.g., site=gc.ca)
 library catalogues and
other databases
Intellectual Access to Canadian
Government Information
NEOS Catalogue / UA WorldCat Local
• Author = Canada (use stable elements of the agency name;
e.g., Canada Finance NOT Canada Department of Finance)
• Subject Headings to Know:
– government policy
– *** policy (e.g., environmental policy, fiscal policy, housing policy, industrial policy, labor
policy, language policy, military policy, social policy, urban policy, etc.)
– Canada (especially to broaden to non-governmental pubs about government policy)
• WorldCat Local topic facet: “government documents”
Free Intellectual Access to Canadian
Government Information
• Depository Services Program Catalogue
http://publications.gc.ca/
• AMICUS (Library and Archives Canada) Federal
Publications Locator
http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/7/5/index-e.html
• Internet Archive (mostly historical)
http://www.archive.org
• UofA Government Information LibGuide
http://guides.library.ualberta.ca/govtinfo
Fee-Based Intellectual Access to
Canadian Government Information
• Canadian Research Index (Microlog) $$
http://www.library.ualberta.ca/databases_help/cri/index.cfm
• Early Canadiana Online (CIHM) $$/some free
http://www.canadiana.org/ECO
Exercise
Find resources to help answer the following
question posed by an undergraduate student
taking a first year environmental studies course:
What is Canada doing about climate change?
Note: all demonstrated resources linked from
http://www.library.ualberta.ca/ - Browse by Type –
All Types - Government Information – Canada Federal
Other Resources to Know
(all linked via UofA LibGuide)
• Budget Cycle
– Speech From the Throne
– Budget
– Estimates (RPPs and DPRs)
– Public Accounts
• Government Databases on the Internet
• Statistics Canada
Challenges
• Migration issues: important microfiche and paper
collections not digitized, some digital collections
unstable.
• Fugitive materials: not everything published by
Canadian government agencies is disseminated in
a systematic way.
• Disappearing materials: stability cannot be
assumed.
• Moving target: governing parties and policies
change.
Professional Resources
• Associations
– ALA, Government Documents Round Table (GODORT)
– CLA, Access to Government Information Interest
Group (AGIIG)
– SLA, Government Information Division
• Listservs
– GOVINFO
– AGIIG
– INTL-DOC
• UofT iSchool 2136 Course:
– Government Information http://mccaffrey.ischool.utoronto.ca/2136/